‘No one is trying to help’: Disabled tenants at SJ apartment stranded by broken elevators

Disabled San Jose residents have been confined to their apartments for more than a week after the second elevator in their supportive housing complex went down. Residents said the slow response by the housing operator to this and other issues is upending their lives.

Villas on the Park, located in the heart of downtown San Jose and developed by nonprofit People Assisting the Homeless (PATH), has two elevators — one which has been out for months. When the second elevator in the 83-apartment complex stopped working last Wednesday, the building turned into a “madhouse” according to one resident. Some residents were trapped inside the elevator for hours, while other disabled residents were waiting in the lobby to get into their apartment, including Mary, who is wheelchair bound. Seeing that no one was coming to fix the elevator that night, friends carried her up the stairs to her apartment.